• Russia has touted its leading LLM, GigaChat MAX, as part of a national AI strategy.
• But the model is "unremarkable" and lags behind US and Chinese offerings, AI experts told BI.
• While the war in Ukraine has stunted development, Moscow may still be developing military AI.

Russian President Vladimir Putin wants his country to compete in the global race to build AI, besting models coming out of China and the US. But its flagship large language model, or LLM, isn't even the best at speaking Russian.

On the Russian-language version of LLM Arena — where users go to compare and rank the answers of different LLMs — GigaChat MAX comes joint-eighth at the time of writing, behind various versions of Claude, DeepSeek, and ChatGPT.

YandexGPT 4 Pro, an LLM developed by the Russian search engine Yandex, is even lower, at joint 18th.

On the English-language version, neither appears in the ranking of more than 170 LLMs.

GigaChat MAX was developed by Russia's state-majority-owned Sberbank. When its latest iteration launched in November, its Moscow-based lead developer, Evgeny Kosarev, said on LinkedIn that it was "close to GPT4o in quality on Russian and English."

But experts have told Business Insider that, despite Putin emphasizing AI development as a crucial avenue for Russian foreign policy, GigaChat MAX is months behind American and Chinese competitors. The country's war against Ukraine has also drained it of expertise.

Spokespeople for GigaChat MAX and Yandex did not respond to Business Insider's request for comment.

An 'unremarkable' model

For now, GigaChat MAX, Russia's most developed LLM, is "unremarkable," Lukasz Olejnik, a visiting senior research fellow in cybersecurity at the War Studies department at King's College, London, told BI.

On "benchmarks" — standardized tests for AI effectiveness — the models' scores "are much lower," he said, adding that they don't surpass any of the cutting-edge, or "frontier," models, and don't involve any particular innovation.

Ben Dubow, a senior fellow at the Center for European Policy Analysis and CTO of data-analysis firm Omelas, added that GigaChat MAX lacked an edge in many ways.

While it handles math well, in the Russian language it is far behind most leading Western and Chinese LLMs on some benchmarks, Dubow wrote in The Moscow Times in January.

He said that leading LLMs developed in the US were a year ahead of GigaChat MAX's current level on the industry-standard "Massive Multitask Language Understanding," or MMLU, which tests an LLM's general knowledge and problem-solving ability in text-based answers across a huge range of subjects.

Dubow also told BI that most AIs are being held to more advanced benchmarks, with MMLU "almost considered passé at this point."

"Besting American and Chinese models on Russian language prompts is a top priority for the Russian government's AI strategy, but MAX has not achieved that," Dubow said.

The war in Ukraine is holding Russia's AI development back

Russian President Vladimir Putin has repeatedly emphasized the importance of AI, including at a December conference where he touted GigaChat MAX and said Russia was ready to assist other nations with developing AI.

Samuel Bendett, a specialist in Russian military technology at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, told BI that AI was "a status thing" for Russia.

But per a global AI ranking produced by UK media startup Tortoise Media, Russia is the only one out of the five "great power" countries — the US, China, France, the UK, and Russia — not at the top of the list. Russia is ranked 31st.

Bendett named several factors holding Moscow's AI sector back.

Russia's private sector is too small to foster real competition, with almost everything government-supported, he said.

Although Sberbank is increasingly casting itself as a technology company, "there is no equivalent to OpenAI and Microsoft or Google or Huawei or Alibaba," he continued.

Additionally, Russia's invasion of Ukraine has isolated it from both global expertise and collaboration, as well as access to tech like microchips necessary to train and run complex AI models efficiently.

"The story of the Russian AI industry is, in a lot of ways, Putin's expansionism undermining Russia's global standing," said Dubow.

2014 — when Russia annexed Crimea — was a transformative year for AI in the West and China.

Meanwhile, 2022, the year Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine, was the year ChatGPT launched, sparking the generative AI boom.

The war in Ukraine accelerated a major brain drain from Russia, according to Dubow.

Bendett added that Russia lacks "hundreds of thousands" of high-tech researchers, although he said that he believed many of the "tech refugees" who left Russia to avoid the draft have started to trickle back.

Putin acknowledged the problems last year, blaming "unfriendly countries" for the roadblocks and vowing to increase the number of people graduating in AI technology to more than 15,000 a year by 2030, Russia's TASS news agency reported, citing government documents.

The report said just 3,000 graduated in 2022.

By comparison, the US had more than 73,000 graduates in AI-related fields in 2023, the majority of whom were international talent, according to the Center for Security and Emerging Technology.

Serhii Kupriienko, CEO of Swarmer, a Ukrainian startup specializing in AI-based systems, told BI that over the next decade, the US and China's LLMs will help them scale their economies "exponentially" by boosting productivity across various sectors, creating jobs in AI, and speeding up innovation.

Meanwhile, Russia's struggles with AI mean its likeliest path forward is to "be subordinate to China and rely on what China's producing," Dubow said.

The 'holy grail for AI' could boost Russia's military

The Kremlin's repeated public statements on AI and the ongoing war in Ukraine have led some analysts to conclude Russia may be secretly developing a dual-use LLM with military applications.

In 2022, a Russian official announced the creation of a department for developing AI within the defense ministry.

"Russia envisions AI as a transformative tool for its military," Saratoga Foundation military analysts Timothy Thomas and Glen Howard wrote in a February review of Russian writings on military AI.

Vitaliy Goncharuk, who chaired Ukraine's AI Committee between 2019 and 2022, believes Russia may be training its AI on the vast amounts of battlefield data being generated in Ukraine.

Telegram posts and channels, drone footage, satellite imagery, sound sensors, civilian reports, and hacked material from Ukraine's Delta cloud-based management system — which feeds Ukrainian commanders with battlefield data — all provide ample material, Goncharuk said.

AI developed on this would not only help Russia improve its precision in identifying targets but also help it plan its decision-making and real-time front-line operations, Goncharuk said. It could even predict Ukraine's future decision-making and future battlefield operations, he added.

Ukraine, too, has gathered vast quantities of battlefield data from three years of war — something that is "truly the holy grail of training your AI models and systems on battlefield target recognition and selection," Bendett told BI.

It would be difficult to imagine Russia not quietly also using this data, he added.

"They constantly hint at that," he said.

• Future US aid deliveries to Ukraine are under threat.
• Some of Ukraine's key weaponry has come from the US.
• Europe has vowed to step up and needs to find weaponry to replace what the US halts.

Many of the most powerful and important weapons Ukraine has received since the start of the war come from the US, or are US-made — like Javelin anti-tank missiles, F-16 fighter jets, and Patriot interceptor missiles.

However, Trump's recent announcements have made Ukraine's future access to these critical weapons anything but clear.

Europe can provide a lot, and many analysts say that what matters most is the quantity and total picture of Ukraine's capabilities.

"It's the total amount of military equipment flow that is important," Mark Cancian, a senior advisor at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, told BI.

Even so, Europe's arsenals are stretched, and in many cases lack weaponry that can directly replace the US-made weapons that have helped Ukraine the most.

Recent estimates suggest only 20% of total military hardware supplied to Ukrainian forces is now from the US — 55% is Ukrainian-produced and 25% is from Europe and the rest of the world, Malcolm Chalmers, RUSI's Deputy Director-General, said. But he called that 20% "the most lethal and important."

"Ukraine will not collapse — they already experienced an aid cutoff last year, but the effect will be cumulative," he added.

Ukraine is also set to receive more arms this year directly from US manufacturers that were approved during the Biden administration, and it's unclear if President Donald Trump's administration will attempt to block them.

Here's the key US weaponry that Ukraine is using and what Europe has to offer in its place:

HIMARS

The 2022 arrival of US-made HIMARS rocket launchers, made by Lockheed Martin, was celebrated as a huge moment for Ukraine, as one of the first major pieces of Western weaponry that Ukraine was trusted with.

The system's GPS-guided rockets, with a range of 50 miles, have been used by Ukraine to hit behind Russian lines, destroy columns of Russian troops and also ammunition depots. The US has given Ukraine at least 40 of them.

Justin Bronk, a leading airpower expert at RUSI, told BI that HIMARS were "widely effective" when they first arrived and were "absolutely crucial" to Ukraine's fightback, as they targeted command centers and ammo depots, constraining the huge logistics Russia's frontline forces require.

HIMARS has become less effective over time as Russia's electronic warfare abilities have grown, and there are global shortages of its ammunition type. Still, Bronk said they were "still an important part of the Ukrainian's capabilities" and "Europe doesn't have anything to replace it with."

There is, however, a new European alternative being developed.

EuroPULS is a collaboration between French-German defense company KNDS and Israeli company Elbit Systems, and some European governments have already placed orders. But few have been delivered, and some of the weapon's specifications are unclear.

Elbit Systems said it could use the GMLRS rockets that are launched by HIMARS, but that suggestion was shut down by Lockheed Martin.

Other European rocket launchers are also an option. Germany's MARS II is already present in Ukraine, but it is less mobile than HIMARS, making it slower to deploy and an easier target.

Mick Ryan, a retired Australian Army major general, told BI that "there's not a lot out there that would immediately step into the gap" if HIMARS were no longer available.

Patriot and ATACMS

HIMARS can fire a six-pack of GLMRS rockets or one ATACMS ballistic missile — one of the foremost weapons in Ukraine's hands.

ATACMS, a tactical missile made by Lockheed Martin with a nearly 190-mile range, allowed Ukraine to finally make the fight more even after the US in 2024 granted permission for them to be used against targets on Russian soil.

The US-made MIM-104 Patriot surface-to-air missile system is another of Ukraine's top weapons. The Patriot, made by Raytheon and Lockheed Martin, has helped to protect Ukrainian cities and shoot down Russian planes, and its performance in Ukraine has boosted the weapon's reputation and given the US critical information that will increase the Patriot's accuracy.

If both weapons are no longer available, Europe can't directly replace them.

"Europe has no direct equivalent to Patriot," said RUSI's Bronk, adding that the closest equivalent is the SAMP/T, a French-made air defense system that is also in Ukraine.

But the "crucial" thing the Patriot offers, Bronk said, is "its ability to shoot down ballistic missiles."

The SAMP/T has "a degree of ballistic missile capability, but it's not as capable as Patriot," and there are not as many, Bronk added.

Many of Ukraine's allies, notably in Europe, have Patriots, but whether or not those allies can give them will likely depend on US permission. Ukraine is working on its own air defense system to rival the Patriot, but it's far from operational.

Ukraine does have other long-range strike missiles, like the Storm Shadow/SCALP from the UK and France, that it uses to hit targets well beyond the battlefield and even into Russia. But ATACMS travel faster than those and other cruise missiles, and its cluster warhead can be more effective at destroying targets, Bronk said.

Abrams tanks and Bradley vehicles

The US has provided Ukraine with dozens of US-made Abrams main battle tanks and hundreds of Bradley infantry fighting vehicles.

Better than the Soviet-era tanks Kyiv fielded at the start of the war, the M1 Abrams has not proven as effective in Ukraine's positional fighting as once thought, which, like all armored vehicles, has shown high vulnerability to mines, anti-tank missiles, and drones, resulting in substantial losses.

The Bradley fighting vehicle, meanwhile, has been praised by Ukrainian soldiers for its mobility, firepower, and ability to maneuver in complex terrain, especially against Russian armored vehicles. It faces the same battlefield challenges as the Abrams but can better sustain losses because Ukraine has received over 300 from the US.

The most commonly cited European tank to potentially replace the Abrams and Bradley is Germany's Leopard 2.

Some military analysts consider the German-made tank to be on par with the M1 Abrams, as both have similar armor protection and a 120mm smoothbore main gun.

The UK, meanwhile, has sent Ukraine the Challenger 1 main battle tank, which Ukrainian soldiers have praised for its armor, accuracy, and firepower.

The lack of tank-on-tank combat has limited Ukraine's need for larger tank forces.

F-16s

The long-awaited arrival of US-made F-16 fighter jets in Ukraine last year gave Ukraine its first Western jet, and its most powerful asset in the air. F-16s have protected Ukrainian cities and helped keep Russia's air force at bay.

The General Dynamics-built jet was largely considered one of the best fits for Ukraine, primarily because it is so prolific: As the world's most common fixed-wing aircraft in military service, finding spares and more jets, as well as training for Ukraine's pilots, is relatively easy.

In fact, all of the F-16s in Ukraine have come from European nations, and not the US, but those countries had to wait months for the US to agree to let them send the planes.

The F-16 was never expected to be a game changer in Ukraine and the small number given means it can't field a large, powerful air force.

The only other Western aircraft Ukraine currently has is the French-made Mirage, which is not too different from the F-16 but has more limited weapons available and is far less plentiful.

Sweden's Gripen jet is seen by many as a better fit for Ukraine, but none have been committed to date. There are also far fewer of the Saab jets in the world to give.

Changing to a new jet type would also put more stress, delays, and costs on Ukraine: the infrastructure and training was set up with F-16s in mind.

Other Ukrainian allies have F-16s and parts they could keep on giving, but that would likely require US permission.

Javelins

Ukrainian troops have used the US-made Javelin missiles — shoulder-fired, anti-tank missiles with a 1.5-mile range — to devastating effect throughout the war, especially in the first two years.

Three military experts told BI in mid-2023 that it was one of the five deadliest weapons Ukraine was using at the time to fight back against Russia.

Ukraine has also made use of the Next Generation Light Anti-Tank Weapon (NLAW) designed by Britain and Sweden. While the NLAW is a lighter anti-tank missile, it has just a third of the range of the Javelin, meaning it is better suited to urban combat than open terrain and longer-distance anti-tank operations.

Another option is the French Akeron missile, which has a longer range of up to 5 miles when launched from the ground. During a government hearing in November 2023, Lionel Royer-Perreaut, a member of the French National Assembly, said France had sent an unspecified number to Ukraine since the start of the war.

AGM-154 Joint Standoff Weapon (JSOW)

The US sent Ukraine an unspecified number of AGM-154 Joint Standoff Weapons (JSOW) in September 2024 for use by its F-16 fighter jets to improve the country's long-range strike capabilities.

The air-launched glide bomb has a range of more than 70 miles, smaller than the 155-mile range provided by both Britain's Storm Shadow and France's SCALP-EG cruise missiles.

The European missiles are the closest comparable weapons to JSOW, as they are also designed to be launched from aircraft at a standoff distance. The European missiles' longer range also allows for strikes from further away.

Ukraine has other glide bombs in its arsenal, including the French AASM Hammer, formally known as the Armement Air-Sol Modulaire, which has a range of about 43 miles — shorter than the JSOW.

M270 Multiple Launch Rocket System

As of March 2024, the UK, Norway, France, and Germany had sent around 34 US-made M270 multiple-launch rocket systems (MLRS) to Ukraine. The US, under President Joe Biden's administration, was initially reluctant to send them to Ukraine due to fears of escalation.

The MLRS can fire 12 to 18 guided rockets in under a minute and be set up, fired, and moved to another position quickly before enemy artillery can pinpoint its location.

European armies have already sent multiple European-made launch rocket systems to Ukraine, including France's Lance-Roquette Unitaire (LRU) and Germany's MARS2.

The LRU can carry 12 rockets and fire at a range of about 43 miles, while Germany's MARS2 can fire 12 rockets per minute and has a combat range of about 43 miles, making them both good alternatives to the US M270 MLRS.

• Yong-Soo Chung left his job as a software engineer at Ripple in 2015 after the startup was fined.
• He launched an e-commerce business and doesn't regret leaving his 9-to-5 for a second.
• Chung, whose business brought in over $1 million in sales last year, said he loves entrepreneurship.

This as-told-to essay is based on a conversation with Yong-Soo Chung, a 38-year-old entrepreneur. The following has been edited for length and clarity. Business Insider verified Chung's past employment and businesses.

In 2014, I worked a 9-to-5 at what was then a crypto blockchain startup.

I joined them around March 2014, and it was an amazing experience. A year later, we were investigated by FinCEN about a platform we'd launched that allowed cross-border transactions on the blockchain.

In May 2015, FinCEN fined Ripple $700,000 for operating as a money services business without registering and failing to implement an adequate anti-money laundering program. This basically put a pause on all of our development. It was really strange to go from rolling on all cylinders to suddenly being blocked.

Every day, I'd sit at my desk as a software engineer, knowing we couldn't do much. I was miserable and depressed. I eventually decided to quit and left my 9-to-5 in September 2015.

My friends at the time called me crazy. Now, I call them crazy.

Start your business around hobbies

When Ripple was fined, I decided to leave, but I needed a plan. I had around $10,000 saved to invest in a business, so I spent the summer coming up with an idea.

I reviewed my credit card statements to see what I was spending money on and whether I could build a business out of my interests.

That got me into the rabbit hole of everyday carry gear, like wallets, knives, and pens. I'd spent a lot of money on these products and was obsessed with things that lasted a long time.

Over the summer, I started building an Instagram audience of people who were into pocket items. Once I felt I had a solid audience, I left Ripple in September 2015 and launched the Urban EDC shop, an e-commerce brand, in October 2015.

Business ideas come from unexpected places

I did weekly product drops releasing new products every Wednesday while continuing to build my email list and Instagram audience.

This gave me a great mechanism for feedback: every week, I would see what did well and what didn't. Then, I knew what kind of products I needed to sell.

The everyday carry community is very tight-knit, with many people creating products, so we reached out to some for collaborations. We were initially profitable because we focused on selling low-cost items. However, the profits were difficult to live off, and we had to be scrappy. I remember working for a month straight and not going out once. I was very focused on generating more cash flow, and we slowly built the business up.

We launched our second business in 2017 after getting a French bulldog. We made an Instagram account for the dog, and it exploded. We now have 122,000 followers as well as a TikTok audience.

Followers were asking us, "Where did you get that harness? Where did you get that leash?" My wife suggested creating a business similar to what I have with EDC gear but for Frenchie lovers and dog owners. My EDC business was growing very steadily, so why not copy the same model for a different audience?

That's exactly what we did: my wife created Spotted by Humphrey, an online boutique for dog apparel and dog accessories.

We created two businesses based on our hobbies and interests. I don't feel like there's a work-life balance because I don't feel like I'm working. I work almost every moment I can, eight to 10 hours a day, including weekends, because I enjoy it.

We initially ran the businesses ourselves. But as we grew, we were stuck at around $80,000 a month in topline revenue. I started to delegate customer support and grew our team to about 5 to 7 people in the US.

Cutting back on expenses

My EDC company had sales of over $3 million in 2022, but that was at the peak of post-pandemic e-commerce.

We were paying a lot on salaries for our employees and software, and our revenues were declining, so from mid-2023 to early 2024, I decided to essentially cut everything — employees and software — and come back to just me.

I hired a US-based contractor and outsourced a team of five in the Philippines. The business became profitable again, and we didn't need all these overhead costs.

Now, we're on good grounds and rebounding. The company is growing again. I don't feel like we're regressing. We made $1.3 million in sales in 2024.

You'll never feel ready

You will never be 100% ready to start your own business. Most people stay in a job they don't enjoy, and are living in a mediocre middle ground — happy but not happy.

Being an entrepreneur has probably stretched me physically, mentally, and emotionally. You can get into dark moments, and you don't have anyone to blame but yourself. It's all your responsibility. But it's rewarding getting yourself out of those times. In a strange way, you want your challenges to become bigger because it's a sign that you're growing as a business. Being an entrepreneur has taught me a lot about myself.

I'd recommend just making a jump or even starting a side hustle. I've traded a career in blockchain, where I'd be 13 years in and making a lot of money by now, for entrepreneurship, and I have no regrets.

I think it's important to look at your life daily and question how you want to spend your time. You want to optimize for enjoyment. I enjoy the highs and lows of entrepreneurship. I can't imagine going back to 9-to-5 now.

• The Office of Personnel Management said it can now process retirement applications digitally.
• For decades, the US government has processed retirement paperwork in a mine in Pennsylvania.
• The facility has been in the crosshairs of the DOGE office.

In a video promoted by the White House DOGE office, the Office of Personnel Management said it can now process pensions entirely digitally — and within two days.

For decades, OPM has stored and processed federal retirement paperwork in a limestone mine. The US government started storing records in the underground facility in the 1960s.

In a video update shared on Thursday by the OPM, Chuck Ezell, OPM's interim director, said that the Trump administration had approached OPM "about a week ago" with the one-week "challenge" to process a federal retiree's application "end-to-end digitally without printing anything on paper."

Kimya Lee, OPM's associate deputy director for enterprise enablement, said in the video that they "got it done in record time within two days without printing one piece of paper."

DOGE's de facto leader Elon Musk highlighted the issue in a press conference earlier this month. Musk criticized the reliance on paper records and said the speed of the mine's elevator shaft determined how fast people could retire.

"The elevator breaks down sometimes, and nobody can retire," Musk said, adding: "Doesn't that sound crazy?"

The facility holds 26,000 filing cabinets containing 400 million retiree documents, and applications are still largely processed by hand — a system that can take months.

"Instead of working in a mineshaft, carrying manila envelopes to boxes in a mine, you could do practically anything else, and you would add to the goods and services of the United States in a more useful way," Musk said of those working there.

The OPM didn't immediately reply to Business Insider's request for comment.

In an X post on Friday, DOGE praised the development, calling it "a great improvement from the current paper solution taking multiple months."

Musk has said that, due to the mine's manual systems, only about 10,000 retirees' paperwork can be processed in a month.

DOGE's X account later said that more than 700 employees work 230 feet underground to process applications.

Musk's comments came as the Trump White House continues its moves to radically overhaul the federal workforce, fueling anxiety among those who work there.

"They're nervous for their jobs obviously because their heads are on the cutting block," a senior OPM source told Business Insider on condition of anonymity.

"This administration has been very black and white the day they walked through the door about what they were going to do," they added.

A 2014 Washington Post report said 600 OPM workers processed federal employees' retirement papers by hand at the site, passing thousands of case files from cavern to cavern.

The outlet said successive administrations have tried and failed to digitize the process.

The OPM source told BI that fully digitizing all the mine records would be an "incredibly expensive, multi-year, if not decade-long, project."

They also said closing the mine would damage the local economy.

The mine is in a "really, really rural area in the middle of Western Pennsylvania," they told BI. "It's not like there's a lot of opportunity in the area."

• Romanian lawmakers approved a bill allowing its military to shoot down drones over its airspace.
• The NATO country has seen Russian drones entering its territory, with some crashing on its land.
• Russia has targeted Ukrainian civilian and energy infrastructure near NATO's borders.

Romania could start shooting down drones that enter its airspace after lawmakers approved a new bill on Wednesday.

The legislation allows Romania's military to "destroy, neutralize, or take control of" unnamed aircraft illegally breaching its airspace.

It's set to be signed into law by interim President Ilie Bolojan.

Romania, a NATO member bordering Ukraine, has seen regular incidents of Russian drones entering its airspace or crashing on its territory since Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022.

Last month, Romania's defense ministry said that its investigation team had found Russian drone debris in two areas near its border with Ukraine.

Romania has also scrambled fighter jets in response to Russian drone activity. In July, two F-18 jets were dispatched after Russian drones attacked Ukrainian civilian targets and port infrastructure near their shared border.

In September, two Romanian F-16 fighter jets and two Spanish F-18 jets were also deployed after Russian drones targeted Ukrainian infrastructure nearby.

Drones have been a hallmark of the war in Ukraine, with both sides using the rapidly evolving technology to devastating effect. This has raised the alert level in nearby countries.

In an interview last year, Gheorghita Vlad, Romania's defense chief, advocated for legal revisions to empower the military to shoot down drones.

Other countries neighboring Ukraine, including Poland and Latvia, have also reported Russian drones illegally entering their airspace.

NATO spokesperson Farah Dakhlallah told BI in September that "shooting down drones or missiles violating Allied territory are decisions for national authorities."

"We are strengthening Romania's defense," Mircea Abrudean, Romania's interim Senate president, said in a Facebook post on Wednesday.

"Romania's safety is non-negotiable," he added.

Abrudean also said another law passed in the Senate on Wednesday would allow Romania's military to better collaborate with NATO partners on its territory during peacetime missions and military operations.

• Tesla is rolling out self-driving features to some cars in China, per a software update log.
• It's not being called Full Self-Driving and Tesla is not offering all the FSD features as in the US.
• BYD is equipping nearly all its models with advanced self-driving tech at no extra cost.

Tesla has started rolling out driving-assistance features to some cars in China that are similar to the Full Self-Driving (FSD) system in the US, according to a software update log.

Tesla said the new features allow Tesla owners in China to use driver-assist features on controlled-access and city roads. These include guiding vehicles to exit ramps and intersections, recognizing traffic signals, making turns, and managing lane changes and speed adjustments.

It does not incorporate all of Tesla's FSD features, including autonomously navigating complex urban environments such as parking lots. Tesla is not branding it as Full Self-Driving.

"For some features, the time of implementation and results may vary based on the vehicle's model and configuration," the company said, adding that the range of models will be gradually expanded.

Bloomberg first reported Tesla's planned deployment of FSD features in China.

The move comes after BYD, Tesla's biggest rival in China, announced earlier this month that it would equip nearly all its models with advanced self-driving tech at no extra cost, and other rivals followed suit.

In contrast, Tesla owners in China have had to pay about $8,800 extra for self-driving features — a sum nearly as high as the cost of BYD's cheapest model.

BYD has racing ahead in China's fiercely competitive EV market. In January it sold sold nearly twice as many EVs as Tesla, with the US carmaker's sales down 11% compared with the same month in 2024.

BYD sold a record 66,000 vehicles outside China in January, indicating that a push to expand outside its home market is starting to pay off.

Last month, BYD overtook Toyota to become Singapore's best-selling car brand and also beat Tesla in the UK for the first time.

Other Chinese brands such as NIO, XPeng, MG, and ORA are also notching up higher sales of their affordable electric and hybrid vehicles outside China amid intense competition in the domestic market.

• Ukraine has become the largest producer of tactical and strategic drones, its defense minister said.
• Ukraine has ramped up its drone production since the start of Russia's full-scale invasion in 2022.
• In total, Ukraine delivered over 1.3 million drones to soldiers in 2024, its commander in chief said.

Ukraine has become the world's largest producer of key military-use drones, the country's defense minister said.

"We've become the biggest drone manufacturer in the world, drones of tactical and strategic level," Rustem Umerov said during a Sunday press conference at Ukraine's "Year 2025" forum.

Tactical drones support smaller-scale battlefield actions, often at close ranges, by gathering intelligence and supporting strikes, either as the munition or by providing targeting data.

Strategic drones, meanwhile, are often higher-end, high-altitude systems with the endurance to advance operations against higher-priority targets.

Speaking at the same press conference, Oleksandr Syrskyi, Ukraine's commander in chief, said the country delivered over 1.3 million drones to front-line soldiers in 2024. The general added that its long-range drones can strike targets up to 1,700 kilometers inside Russia.

At a separate press conference on Sunday, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said his country produced 2.2 million drones in total in 2024 and planned to ramp up production further in 2025.

Ukraine's defense ministry didn't respond to a Business Insider request for comment.

Up-to-date and comprehensive data on various countries' respective drone production is scarce, making direct comparisons difficult.

June 2024 data from Statista Market Insights, a data analysis service on market trends, said China was set to be the world's largest overall drone manufacturer in 2024 and was on track to produce 2.9 million drones. However, the data does not include drones for military purposes, though off-the-shelf drones for civilian use have been heavily repurposed for military use in Ukraine and further afield.

In September, Russian President Vladimir Putin said Russia was ramping up its own drone production to nearly 1.4 million in 2024, a tenfold increase from the previous year.

Drones are increasingly being used in conflicts around the world for intelligence and reconnaissance, bombing missions, precision strikes, and other military purposes by both state-level and non-state actors.

This has led to an increased demand for counter-drone capabilities.

In December, the Pentagon released a new counter-drone strategy aimed at coordinating how different branches of the US military are responding to the threat of drones and making "countering unmanned systems a key element of our thinking."

Drones have been a hallmark of the war in Ukraine, with both sides using the evolving technology to devastating effect.

Even so, Ukrainian tactical drones face significant challenges, according to a February report by the UK's Royal United Services Institute, with a 60-80% failure rate in hitting targets "depending on the part of the front and the skill of the operators."

Despite this, it said that they still account for 60 to 70% of damaged and destroyed Russian military systems.

In an October speech to executives from dozens of foreign arms manufacturers, Zelenskyy said Ukraine was capable of producing 4 million drones a year, up from the one million he predicted in December 2023.

Kyiv has tried to smooth the process of drone acquisitions for its troops.

Last week, Umerov said Ukraine's defense ministry was launching a new drone supply model to facilitate a "fast and uninterrupted supply of the best UAVs for our soldiers," and to provide its armed forces with an additional $60 million a month to purchase drones.

Ukraine's growing defense industry has led some to believe that drones, among other military capabilities, could play an important role in Ukraine's postwar economic recovery.

• The US Space Force needs a "warfighting ethos" to compete with China in space, a new report has said.
• Failure to adapt could threaten the force's long-term chances of success in the space domain, it said.
• The Space Force also lacks a clearly defined role and resources, the authors said.

The US Space Force needs a change in mindset and increased funding to compete with China in the space domain, two retired US colonels argued in a new report for the Mitchell Institute for Aerospace Studies.

The report, which was released earlier this week, summarizes the findings and recommendations from a two-day workshop held in October at the Mitchell Institute's Spacepower Advantage Center of Excellence.

The event brought together 55 space experts to examine the Space Force Chief of Space Operations' theory of success — called "Competitive Endurance" — against a set of potential crises over the next 25 years, including the Russian deployment of a nuclear antisatellite weapon and an attempted Chinese space blockade.

The workshop found that the role of the Space Force was not well understood by many Americans and that it lacked resources and a "warfighting ethos," which the authors of the new report said threatened its long-term chances of success against China in the space domain.

"Systemic issues exist within the Space Force and Department of Defense that threaten the success of the Space Force in a long-term competition with China," Charles Galbreath, a retired US Space Force colonel, and Jennifer Reeves, a retired US Air Force colonel, wrote.

"Chief among these are: inadequate authorities and resources, a lack of clearly defined and understood roles and missions, and the need for increased warfighting ethos."

Drawing on the workshop's findings, the authors, both senior fellows at the Mitchell Institute, called on Congress to increase funding to the USSF and loosen policy restrictions to allow the deployment of offensive and defensive weapons, which they said would enable the force to "create a stronger posture, capable of deterring hostile actions and conflict."

They also urged the force to develop educational and training programs that aimed to "foster an assertive, warfighting culture," adding that Space Force members — known as Guardians — "must see themselves as warfighters and project a war-winning ethos."

While Galbreath and Reeves praised the "three tenets of Competitive Endurance" — avoiding operational surprise, denying first-mover advantage, and undertaking responsible counter-space campaigning — they said the theory did not "normalize space as a warfighting domain" or allow Guardians to "pursue victory and space superiority," which they said made it difficult for the public and Congress to grasp its military importance.

"If this loophole is not addressed, the Space Force and U.S. Space Command could find itself in a death spiral of waning support and funding, ultimately precluding the fielding of capabilities and conducting of operations necessary to secure U.S. interests in space," they added.

A Space Force spokesperson told Business Insider that "as China and Russia accelerate the development of counter-space capabilities, the need for a well-resourced Space Force has never been more critical."

"Our Guardians remain committed to ensuring space superiority while safeguarding the long-term stability and sustainability of the domain," they said.

Maj. Gen. Timothy Sejba, commander of Space Training and Readiness Command (STARCOM), said in 2023 that a warfighting mindset was vital to the USSF's work.

Speaking to attendees at the Air & Space Forces Association's 2023 Air, Space & Cyber Conference, Sejba, then Brigadier General, said that STARCOM's mission was to instill the warfighting mindset in every Space Force recruit.

"Even though the Space Force is only four years old, we've built the warfighting mindset for almost 40 years," he said, adding that he thought it was "critical" for the force to train "like we potentially have to fight in the future."

"I think that exists in other domains and other services, but it's one that we just haven't necessarily had to put into place for space in the past," he added.

Officials have long warned of growing international threats facing the US in the space domain.

In an interview with Politico in October, Gen. B. Chance Saltzman, the Chief of Space Operations, said China was developing counter-space capabilities at a "mind-boggling" pace and was of particular concern for the US.

John Plumb, a former assistant secretary of defense for space policy, also warned in 2023 of the increasing quantity and quality of global counter-space threats.

Plumb pointed to China fielding ground-based counter-space weapons and Russia developing its own systems designed at "degrading and denying US space-based services."

"Our competitors have watched us, they have learned from us, they've stolen from us, and they have developed capabilities to hold us at risk. But they are not ready for us. They're not ready for us today," he said.

• Ukraine says it is launching a new supply model to get drones to troops faster.
• Its defense minister said the system would reduce delivery times from months to weeks.
• Ukraine has ramped up its domestic drone production since the start of the war.

Ukraine is launching a new drone supply model that aims to reduce delivery times to troops from months to weeks.

Rustem Umerov, the Ukrainian defense minister, announced the new system in a Facebook post on Thursday after meeting with representatives from Ukrainian drone manufacturers.

The new model is designed to facilitate the "fast and uninterrupted supply of the best UAVs for our soldiers," Umerov said.

As well as reducing delivery times, the system will help support manufacturers by giving them advanced orders, meaning they can plan production scaling, he added.

It is based on the DOT-Chain supply management system, which Ukraine first introduced in September as part of a push to digitize and streamline the process of supplying the military.

It's not the first time Kyiv has tried to smooth the process of drone acquisition for its troops.

The Ukrainian defense ministry announced in January that its armed forces would receive an additional UAH 2.5 billion (around $60 million) a month to procure new drones, in a move designed to reduce brigades' reliance on centralized acquisition efforts and allow them to purchase the equipment they need directly.

Drone warfare has been at the core of the conflict in Ukraine since Moscow launched its full-scale invasion in February 2022, with both sides using the evolving technology to devastating effect.

The relatively cheap yet highly effective devices have proven to be so popular that Ukraine has significantly ramped up production efforts since the war broke out.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said in October that Ukraine was capable of producing 4 million drones a year and that Kyiv had contracted 1.5 million so far in 2024. In a Facebook post, Umerov said more than 200,000 drones were delivered to Ukrainian soldiers in December alone.

The country's burgeoning industry has led some to believe that drones could play a role in Ukraine's postwar economic recovery and help it become a key player in the international defense market.

• The Philippines says China is "hindering" its companies from exploring natural resources in the South China Sea.
• The South China Sea is a key shipping route that holds major oil and gas reserves.
• The region has seen rising tensions between Manila and Beijing in recent years.

China's activity in the contested South China Sea is "hindering" Filipino companies from exploring natural resources in the region, Philippines Foreign Secretary Enrique Manalo said during a talk at Chatham House in London on Tuesday.

"The ability of our own companies, for example, to develop natural resources, for example, oil exploration, is also being hindered by the need of one country to be involved in those activities," Manalo said while discussing pressures the Philippines has faced from China in the region.

The South China Sea is an important shipping route that holds major oil and gas reserves.

In recent years, the region has seen rising tensions between Manila and Beijing, with a series of clashes making headlines.

In one incident in June last year, a Filipino military commander said Filipino soldiers were forced to defend themselves with their "bare hands" against Chinese coast guard personnel armed with swords and knives.

Other incidents have included the Philippines accusing China of repeatedly firing flares at its aircraft over the South China Sea and China's largest coastguard vessel dropping anchor in Manila's exclusive economic zone.

"These incidents hit home directly," Manalo said, pointing to the June incident around the Second Thomas Shoal, an atoll located within the exclusive economic zone.

"Because one country claims that lies within their area and is questioning our right to be there, they harassed, and in fact, a number of incidents occurred over the past two years, consisting of water cannoning, the use of lasers, even ramming."

"This is also of great concern, obviously, because if these incidents were to escalate further, then obviously tensions would really rise dramatically," he continued, adding that the Philippines was "absolutely committed" to trying to manage such incidents peacefully.

While China has claimed sovereignty over most of the South China Sea, an international tribunal ruled in 2016 that its claims to waters within its "nine-dash line" — which Beijing uses to illustrate its claims to islands and adjacent waters in the South China Sea — had no legal basis.

Under the terms of the 1951 "Mutual Defense Treaty," the US is obliged to defend the Philippines in a major conflict.

After a meeting with US Secretary of State Marco Rubio during the Munich Security Conference last week, Manalo said the US-Philippines alliance was "still on hyperdrive" under President Donald Trump's administration.

"We may even try and aim for an even more enhanced level of cooperation," he said.

• Meta plans a multibillion-dollar global underwater cable project spanning 31,000 miles.
• The project will ramp up data transmission and connect the US to India, Brazil, and South Africa.
• Meta says it aims to improve global connectivity and support innovation in artificial intelligence.

Meta has unveiled plans to spend billions of dollars as part of its multi-year ambition to build the world's longest subsea cable and accelerate AI innovation.

In a blog post on Friday, the company said its new Waterworth Project will cover over 50,000 kilometers, or about 31,000 miles, making the project's cable longer than the Earth's 24,901-mile circumference.

The Waterworth Project aims to connect five continents, linking the US to India, Brazil, South Africa, and other key regions.

A Meta spokesperson told Business Insider the company anticipates the project will be done toward the end of this decade. They said they don't have specifics to share on the cost, but the blog post said it would be a "multibillion-dollar, multi-year investment" to improve global connectivity. Last November, TechCrunch reported the company may spend over $10 billion on a nearly 25,000-mile underwater cable project led by Meta's South Africa office that the company would 100% own.

Subsea cables form an integral part of the world's internet infrastructure, shuttling data around the world at close to the speed of light thanks to their fiber optic technology. In its blog, Meta noted that cables spanning the world's oceans account for the transfer of "more than 95% of intercontinental traffic."

Meta sees the subsea cables as vital to unlocking future AI innovation as CEO Mark Zuckerberg increasingly shifts the company's focus to generative AI.

Last month, the company announced plans to boost its spending up to $65 billion this year as it seeks to build vast data centers capable of training and hosting the increasingly powerful large language models at the heart of the generative AI boom.

According to Meta's blog post, the Waterworth Project aims to ramp up data transmission capacity by using a fiber optic cable containing 24 fiber pairs instead of the typical systems that use 8 to 16 fiber pairs.

It said the project's features include a first-of-its-kind routing to optimize the cable installed in deep water at depths up to 7 kilometers, or about 4.3 miles. It also said it would use "enhanced burial techniques" in shallow, high-risk areas to protect against damage from ship anchors and potential hazards, which would maintain cable resilience.

"As AI continues to transform industries and societies around the world, it's clear that capacity, resilience, and global reach are more important than ever to support leading infrastructure," it said.

The project's announcement comes after tankers dragging their anchors have severed undersea cables in recent months in the Baltic Sea and East China Sea.

Officials in Europe have accused Russia of sabotaging undersea cables, while Taiwan has said it suspects China is behind the damage off its northern shores.

Cable resilience is key to the global financial system, which depends on a vast network of undersea cables that crisscross the sea floor, carry $10 trillion worth of transactions every day, and power Wall Street's global trading and communications.

"We've driven infrastructure innovation with various partners over the past decade, developing more than 20 subsea cables," Meta's blog post said.

"With Project Waterworth, we can help ensure that the benefits of AI and other emerging technologies are available to everyone, regardless of where they live or work."

• Arms industries could drive Ukraine's postwar economic recovery, its former foreign minister told BI.
• Dmytro Kuleba said Ukraine could tap into military tech and utilize it in its private sector.
• Ukraine could face new challenges whenever the war ends, stifling economic growth.

Defense industries could be the driving force behind Ukraine's postwar economic recovery, the country's former foreign minister told Business Insider in an interview.

Dmytro Kuleba, who led Ukraine's foreign ministry from 2020 to late 2024, said, "When I look at defense industries, I think of how to turn them into a driving force of Ukraine's economic revival.

"What we see today is a complete restructuring of Ukraine's economy," he added.

No one knows when the war in Ukraine will end, although conversations over a peace deal are taking place between President Donald Trump and Russia's President Vladimir Putin.

Ukraine's economy has struggled since Russia launched its full-scale invasion in February 2022.

According to its statistics agency, Ukraine's GDP fell by 28.8% in 2022, before rebounding 5.3% in 2023. Its GDP growth was projected to be about 3.4% to 3.6% in 2024, due in part to defense spending, per the OECD.

Even so, Ukraine's economy has proved resilient, thanks in part to more than $220 billion in Western military aid and to its private and state-run companies shifting their focus toward the country's defense industry.

"Today, a different economy is emerging in front of us," Kuleba told BI, one where he said the private sector could also "massively" leverage Ukraine's defense technologies, such as AI-piloted drones and autonomous vehicles used on the front lines.

"Why cannot the same technology be applied to analyzing the economy, the movement of goods and services in the country, and optimizing them to make them more cost-efficient and customer-oriented?" he said.

Arsenal of the Free World

Kuleba is not the only former official who sees huge potential in Ukraine's defense industries.

Oleksandr Kamyshin, Ukraine's former minister of strategic industries, told The Guardian in November 2023 that Ukraine could become the "arsenal of the free world."

Some economic and military analysts have also predicted that Ukraine will become a European defense powerhouse after the war ends.

William Courtney, an adjunct senior fellow at RAND Corporation and a former US ambassador, told BI that Ukraine could become a cost-competitive producer of a wide range of military equipment.

This would be useful given that many European countries lack the capability to produce some items or the capacity to produce them in sufficient volume, he said.

Courtney pointed to software, AI, robotics, and wheeled vehicles as key areas Ukraine has developed since the start of the war, and where it could lead in Europe.

He also said that a decade after combat operations end and a stable cease-fire or armistice is achieved, Ukraine could become one of the world's top 10 countries in terms of defense production.

Dmytro Krukovets, a macroeconomic analyst at the Kyiv School of Economics, told BI he expects Ukraine to be a strong player after the war.

He pointed to a "rapid rise" in military-tech startups and defense innovations, citing an October 2024 study by Brave1 and the Kyiv School of Economics.

That study found that Ukrainian defense startups raised $5 million in 2023, and looked set to raise $50 million in 2024.

Not plain sailing

However, other economic analysts struck a more cautious tone.

Kateryna Bondar, a fellow with the Wadhwani AI Center at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, told BI that Ukraine will struggle to attract foreign investment due to its weak judicial system and lack of legislation to protect intellectual property rights.

"Capital can come only from abroad," she said, "but we haven't seen really considerable investment, and the reason for that is really the absence of trust in the government, in legislation, and in the judicial system."

Since the outbreak of the war, Western defense companies have opened facilities in the country, including German arms maker Rheinmetall, American defense contractor AeroVironment, and KNDS, a French-German defense group.

But Charles Lichfield, deputy director of the Atlantic Council's GeoEconomics Center, told BI that Ukraine will also need its defense industries to serve domestic needs, to deter future attacks, limiting export opportunities.

"They'll need to keep a lot of what they're producing," he said.

RAND researchers said in a 2023 report that Ukraine would need security guarantees against the threat of another attack to give investors the confidence to take risks and make long-term commitments in the country.

For now, Kuleba, the Ukrainian minister, said his ideas for Ukraine's economy are still uncharted territory, but that "if we want to build a future, we have to start" now.

He added: "Ukraine is open to virtually any idea that can boost economic growth and build a sustainable economy."

• India's prime minister met with President Donald Trump this week.
• Narendra Modi said India and the US had agreed to aim to double bilateral trade to $500 billion by 2030.
• It comes amid Trump's threat of "reciprocal" tariffs on US trading partners.

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi has a new and rather familiar name for his vision for the country: "MIGA."

In a press briefing with President Donald Trump on Thursday, Modi tweaked his US counterpart's famed slogan, saying he wanted to "Make India Great Again."

"When America and India work together, that is, when it's MAGA plus MIGA, it becomes MEGA. A MEGA partnership for prosperity," he said, adding that India and the US had agreed to work toward doubling bilateral trade to $500 billion by 2030.

Modi's visit came as Trump outlined his plans to impose "reciprocal" tariffs on trading partners, including India.

As of 2024, the US is one of India's largest trade partners. US goods trade with India stood at an estimated $129.2 billion in 2024, per the Office of the United States Trade Representative.

But Trump took aim at what he called India's "very strong" tariffs that "limit US access" to the local market.

"We are, right now, a reciprocal nation," Trump said. "Whatever India charges, we're charging them."

He said that going forward he and Modi wanted a "level playing field" regarding tariffs and that they had agreed to a deal for India to import more American oil and gas.

Trump added that the US would also be increasing military sales to India and was "paving the way" to provide the country with F-35 fighter jets.

India's benchmark indices dropped on Friday as investors' concerns over tariffs mounted.

Under Modi's leadership, India has emerged from the COVID-19 pandemic as one of the world's fastest-growing economies, spurred partly by a large, youthful workforce, significant public infrastructure investment, and a growing IT and services sector.

The Indian economy grew at a rapid rate of 8.2% in the financial year 2023 to 2024, boosted by investment in infrastructure and a rise in household investments in real estate, per the World Bank.

The World Bank projects India will remain among the world's fastest-growing major economies for the next two financial years, with a predicted growth rate of 6.7%.

Modi's government aims to make India a developed nation by 2047, but it faces a number of significant challenges, including high youth unemployment rates, widening economic inequality, regional disparities, a stagnant manufacturing sector, a large informal economy, and challenges in the agriculture sector.

• Elon Musk wore a T-shirt with the words "tech support" during a speech to business leaders in Dubai.
• Musk previously referred to himself as "White House Tech Support" in his X bio.
• Musk heads up DOGE, which has led the Trump White House's efforts to cut federal spending.

Elon Musk wore a black T-shirt with the words "tech support" across its middle during his latest address to global business leaders.

The T-shirt was likely a nod to Musk's previous bio on X, where he described himself as "White House Tech Support."

Musk, who leads the Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE, was speaking at Dubai's annual World Governments Summit on Thursday via a video link.

DOGE has been instrumental in President Donald Trump's efforts to cut government spending.

During his address, Musk said the US needs to get rid of entire federal agencies.

"I think we do need to delete entire agencies, as opposed to leave part of them behind," he said.

"It's kind of like leaving a weed," Musk added. "If you don't remove the roots of the weed, then it's easy for the weed to grow back."

Musk's speech came amid concern from lawmakers and watchdog organizations about DOGE's access to Treasury systems containing sensitive information about millions of Americans.

Musk showed little sign of wanting to slow down.

He told the audience that reducing government spending would have a "remarkable" effect.

"If the deficit drops from two trillion to one trillion, then there will be one trillion less debt, and, of course, the interest rates will drop significantly, and that means people's mortgage payments, car payments, credit card payments, student loans — whatever debt they have — their debt will be less," he said.

Musk, who founded SpaceX and owns social media platform X, said the US could be thought of as a "big company," comparing it to Twitter, which he renamed X after buying it for $44 billion in 2022.

"In Twitter's case, we reduced the staff by 80% but at the same time improved the functionality and the capabilities of the site dramatically," he said.

Regarding the US, Musk said: "It's like a corporate turnaround but at a much larger scale."

• Elon Musk said on Tuesday that the government stores key retirement paperwork in a converted mine.
• The limestone mine is real, and is in the Department of Government Efficiency's crosshairs.
• The US government started storing records in the underground facility in the 1960s.

A converted mine located in Pennsylvania and used to store and process federal retirement paperwork is actually real, and is now under threat.

In a press conference in the Oval Office on Tuesday, Elon Musk said that the US government stores and processes all retirement paperwork in a limestone mine.

"The elevator breaks down sometimes, and nobody can retire," Musk said, adding: "Doesn't that sound crazy?"

Musk's comments came as the Trump White House continues its moves to radically alter the federal workforce.

Musk said they were trying to "right-size" the federal bureaucracy and that getting people to retire early on full benefits was a good thing.

But he added: "We were told the most number of people that could retire possibly in a month is 10,000 because all the retirement paperwork is written down on a piece of paper, then it goes down a mine."

Musk said that "instead of working in a mineshaft, carrying manila envelopes to boxes in a mine, you could do practically anything else, and you would add to the goods and services of the United States in a more useful way."

The Department of Government Efficiency's X account later published photos of the facility.

It said more than 700 employees work 230 feet underground to process about 10,000 federal employee retirement applications a month, adding that the process can take several months.

According to a 2014 Washington Post report, 600 Office of Personnel Management workers process federal employees' retirement papers by hand at the site, passing thousands of case files from cavern to cavern.

The manual process continues to operate due to successive administrations' failures to automate it, the outlet reported, delaying how fast workers can receive their full retirement benefits.

In an interview last year with Federal News Network, OPM's then-CEO said the agency was testing an online platform for retirement applications, but he said it would take "many years" to implement.

The Office of Personnel Management didn't immediately respond to a request for comment.

A 2015 prospectus of the facility by the General Services Administration said the mine, which has been occupied by the OPM since 1970, is located in Boyers, Pennsylvania, and has about 580,000 rentable square feet.

The mine was originally owned by US Steel, which excavated the site from 1902 to 1952, before the US government started storing records there in 1960, according to the Center for Land Use Interpretation.

Iron Mountain, a global management and storage service provider, acquired the mine's owner in 1998, it said, and continues to lease space in its underground facility to the US government.

Iron Mountain didn't reply to a request for comment.

In 2015, the GSA warned that parts of the mine's ceiling were degrading. It proposed acquiring a new space to provide a "long-term solution" for federal agencies operating in the mine. It is unclear if anything came of that proposal.

The mine is also used to store films and documents for private companies and groups, including the Corbis photographic collection Bill Gates sold to Visual China Group in 2016.

• Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said he's on the same page as Elon Musk when it comes to cutting waste.
• Bessent told Bloomberg the Musk-led Department of Government Efficiency can make "gigantic savings."
• He also dismissed concerns about DOGE staff's access to the Treasury's payment systems.

Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent told Bloomberg Podcasts on Thursday that he and Elon Musk were "completely aligned" when it came to waste.

"Elon and I are completely aligned in terms of cutting waste and increasing accountability and transparency for the American people," he said.

"I believe that this DOGE program in my adult life is one of the most important audits of government, changes to the government structure we have seen," Bessent added. "I think there are gigantic savings for the American people here."

Since President Donald Trump created the Department of Government Efficiency and brought it inside the White House by executive order, his administration has taken swift actions to roll back regulations and cut spending.

Trump's administration has implemented a hiring freeze across federal agencies. It has also canceled multiple government contracts, including those related to Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion initiatives, and is moving forward with plans to dismantle the US Agency for International Development.

The policies have sparked a slew of lawsuits, legal challenges, unions opposition, and public protests outside federal offices.

Federal worker unions sued the Treasury Department on Monday, accusing the agency of granting Musk access to private sensitive data.

On Tuesday, Trump said he gave DOGE staff "read-only" access to the Treasury's payment systems. These systems control trillions of dollars worth of payments, including Social Security benefits, tax refunds, and veterans' benefits.

In his interview with Bloomberg, Bessent dismissed concerns, saying that DOGE staff had "read-only" access and could make "no changes."

He described the group as an "operational program to suggest improvements."

"These are highly trained professionals, this is not some roving band running around doing things," he said.

Bessent spoke shortly after Musk wrote in an X post that "Billions of taxpayer dollars to known FRAUDULENT entities are STILL being APPROVED by Treasury."

Musk added, "This needs to STOP NOW!"

Bessent also referred to the Grace Commission Report, a study conducted during the Reagan administration that proposed major reforms across various departments and agencies in order to reduce the US national debt in 1984.

"There were some great suggestions that came out of that," he said, but "nothing happened."

• Two House members are unveiling a bill that would ban DeepSeek's AI apps from US government devices.
• The bill is designed to stop China from obtaining sensitive information, just like the TikTok ban.
• "We've seen China's playbook before with TikTok," one of the bill's sponsors said.

Two lawmakers announced on Thursday that they're introducing a bill to ban Chinese startup DeepSeek's AI chatbot from government-owned devices.

The "No DeepSeek on Government Devices Act," sponsored by Democratic Rep. Josh Gottheimer of New Jersey and Republican Rep. Darin LaHood of Illinois, comes amid concerns that US citizens are sharing sensitive information — such as contracts and financial records — with the chatbot.

DeepSeek's sudden emergence shook Wall Street last month. The company has said its new R1 model matches the performance of US rivals such as OpenAI but at a lower training cost. DeepSeek's privacy policy states that user data is stored in China, prompting concerns that the Chinese Communist Party could access US user data.

In a statement, LaHood and Gottheimer referenced research published on Wednesday by the Toronto-based cybersecurity firm Feroot Security. The company said it had found DeepSeek contained a hidden code capable of transmitting user data to CMPassport.com, the online registry for China Mobile, a telecommunications company owned and operated by the Chinese government.

"DeepSeek's generative AI program acquires the data of US users and stores the information for unidentified use by the CCP," said LaHood in a statement to BI. "Under no circumstances can we allow a CCP company to obtain sensitive government or personal data."

Days after the release of its flagship model, DeepSeek became the most downloaded free app on Apple's App Store in the US.

Other countries have taken steps to block DeepSeek. Australia banned DeepSeek from all government devices on Tuesday on national security grounds. Last week, Italy's data protection authority said it had ordered DeepSeek to block its chatbot in the country.

LaHood and Gottheimer's proposal echoes the first steps that led to an effort to prevent TikTok from operating in the US.

"We've seen China's playbook before with TikTok," Gottheimer said in a statement. "We cannot allow it to happen again."

In December 2022, the Senate unanimously approved a bill to block federal employees from downloading or using the app on government devices.

In April 2024, the Biden administration passed legislation banning TikTok unless its parent company, ByteDance, divested the social media app.

That came into force on January 19, and TikTok was briefly unavailable in the US. On January 21, President Donald Trump signed an executive order giving TikTok a 75-day extension to comply with the law.

LaHood, Gottheimer, and DeepSeek did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

• Daniel Penny, the Marine veteran acquitted in a subway killing, has been hired by Andreessen Horowitz.
• A16z said Penny would take the role of deal partner to support the VC firm's American Dynamism team.
• He was found not guilty of criminally negligent homicide last year after choking a subway rider.

Daniel Penny, the Marine veteran who was cleared last year in a subway killing that drew widespread attention, has joined Andreessen Horowitz as a deal partner.

Penny will support the venture capital firm's American Dynamism team, its website said.

In 2023, Penny was arrested and charged in connection with the death of Jordan Neely, a 30-year-old homeless street performer whom Penny restrained using a chokehold on the New York City subway in May of that year. Neely, who had a history of mental illness, was said to be yelling at passengers.

A New York jury deadlocked on a manslaughter charge, which was dismissed, but found Penny not guilty of criminally negligent homicide in December.

In an internal statement seen by The Free Press, David Ulevitch, a general partner at Andreessen Horowitz, also known as A16z, said, "Daniel is a Marine Corps veteran who served his country and, in a frightening moment in a crowded New York City subway car, did a courageous thing."

Vice President JD Vance reacted to Penny joining A16z in an X post, saying, "Incredible news."

A16z did not immediately respond to a request for comment from Business Insider.

An early investor in Silicon Valley giants such as Facebook and Stripe, the firm set up its American Dynamism group in 2023 to invest in founders and companies that support "the national interest."

The venture capital giant, led by the investors Marc Andreessen and Ben Horowitz, has defined the national interest broadly, including aerospace, defense, and public safety as well as education, housing, and manufacturing.

Among the group's top investments so far is Anduril, a drone maker cofounded by the billionaire Palmer Luckey. It was most recently valued at $14 billion.

Advising the new White House administration has been a top priority for A16z's Andreessen. In a podcast episode in December, the firm's cofounder said he had spent about "half" his time at Mar-a-Lago after Election Day discussing policy issues with Donald Trump, then the president-elect.

• Russia is using non-sanctioned vessels and rerouting others to keep exporting oil, per maritime data.
• Western countries have imposed sanctions on Russia's "shadow fleet" to try to reduce its oil revenues.
• Russia is now risking sanctions on more ships, economists and energy experts told Business Insider.

Russia is increasingly relying on non-sanctioned vessels to try to maintain its oil exports, but is putting those ships at risk of being sanctioned too.

Russia has relied heavily on a "shadow fleet" consisting of often aging, uninsured vessels to evade international sanctions.

Last month, the US Treasury announced sweeping sanctions on 183 Russian-controlled ships, affecting more than two-thirds of tankers servicing Kozmino, Russia's key oil export hub in the country's Far East.

Russia's shadow fleet has an estimated 1,300 ships, but once a vessel is sanctioned, most ports will likely refuse to unload it, forcing Russia to find a replacement, Petras Katinas, an energy analyst at the Center for Research on Energy and Clean Air, told Business Insider.

"Moscow now faces the challenge of acquiring many new tankers to sustain its export flows," Katinas said.

Western countries have rolled out sanctions on Russia's shadow fleet in recent months, in an effort to stifle oil shipments and limit the country's ability to maintain its invasion of Ukraine.

Energy and sanctions analysts told BI that Russia's use of non-sanctioned vessels should come as no surprise, and nor should the risks.

Barbados and Panama delisted more than 100 sanctioned Russian ships last month alone.

Benjamin Hilgenstock, a senior economist at the Kyiv School of Economics, said that Russia risks losing significant oil revenue.

With Russia's largest crude oil export trading at around $70 per barrel — $10 per barrel above the G7's price cap — "every single load of 650-675k barrels means $6-7 million in additional export earnings," Hilgenstock said.

He pointed to the Breeze III oil tanker, which was loaded with 660,000 barrels of oil for the first time last month at the Russian port of Ust-Luga on the Baltic Sea, according to ship-tracking data from Kpler.

Per Kpler's data, tankers are also now operating in the Pacific region, including the Suvretta, which made a port call at Kozmino over the weekend and loaded more than 670,000 barrels of crude oil before heading to China, and the Bhilva, which appeared to be on its way to Kozmino from Singapore on Tuesday.

Hilgenstock said that every sanctioned ship removed from operations means significant costs for its operator, and that Western countries can sanction each new ship that enters the fleet.

"While designations have now reached a quite substantial level — around 275 ships sanctioned in one or more jurisdictions according to our count — the job is not done yet," he said.

Even so, analysts believe Russia will continue to look for ways to export oil, given its importance to the country.

Oil and gas revenues accounted for about 30% of Russia's federal budget in 2024, Alexander Novak, Russia's deputy prime minister, said in Energy Policy last week.

And Russia is gearing up to spend the equivalent of $126.8 billion on national defense this year, 32.5% of its federal budget.

Gonzalo Saiz Erausquin, a research fellow at the Royal United Services Institute's Centre for Finance and Security, said the G7 and countries close to it "have to remain vigilant and dedicate huge efforts in identifying shadow fleet vessels."

Meanwhile, he said, oil revenue remains Russia's "lifeline" when it comes to its war in Ukraine.

"They will continue investing, hopefully increasingly incurring higher costs, to keep exporting that oil," he added.

• The US, UK, and EU have imposed a flurry of sanctions on Moscow's "shadow fleet."
• The fleet comprises often aging, uninsured ships that aim to evade sanctions on Russian energy exports.
• Some countries have begun delisting sanctioned Russian shadow tankers.

Russia's "shadow fleet" is running out of options to export oil.

The US, UK, and EU have all levied heavy sanctions on Russian shadow fleet vessels in recent months as part of an effort to hamper Russian oil exports and hinder the country's ability to fund its invasion of Ukraine.

In January, the US Treasury announced sweeping sanctions on 183 Russian-controlled and shadow fleet ships — the latter of which are often aging, uninsured vessels Moscow uses to evade international sanctions. The EU and the UK have together sanctioned more than 140 such vessels.

Russia's shadow fleet has used a number of different tactics to try to evade these sanctions and deliver Russian crude oil while obscuring its source, including turning off automatic identification systems (AIS), providing false positions, and carrying out ship-to-ship transfers.

However, the fleet, which has an estimated 1,300 ships, is now facing another problem — a growing number of registries delisting sanctioned vessels. Between Barbados and Panama alone, more than 100 sanctioned Russian ships are being delisted.

"These ships lose their legal right to operate under those jurisdictions, making them less likely to access international ports or insurance services," Petras Katinas, an energy analyst at the Center for Research on Energy and Clean Air, told Business Insider.

To enter a port, vessels typically need a valid flag issued by a country's maritime authority, insurance coverage, and a classification society verification, which verifies safety standards.

With more registries cutting ties, Russian shadow tankers are forced to change flags frequently, a practice known as "flag hopping," according to Ami Daniel, CEO of maritime AI firm Windward.

Russia has long used this tactic to evade the G7's $60-per-barrel price cap on its oil, which has been in place since December 2022, with Panama, Liberia, the Marshall Islands, and Malta among the favored flags used by the shadow fleet's vessels.

"This is a Whack-a-Mole game," Daniel said. Russia's shadow fleet vessels will "go to whatever random flag will take them."

Some of the Russian ships previously registered in Barbados have already switched flags to Tanzania and São Tomé and Príncipe to evade sanctions, according to the Equasis marine database.

Nevertheless, the latest sanctions have proven "very effective" in pushing shadow fleet vessels out of commercial operations, Benjamin Hilgenstock, a senior economist at the Kyiv School of Economics, said.

"The buyers of the oil, banks involved in the transactions, and port authorities fear being hit by sanctions themselves if they interact with listed tankers or their cargo," he told BI.

Financial impact

The crackdown on Russia's shadow fleet could have serious financial consequences for Moscow.

Oil exports, alongside gas, are one of the Kremlin's most important sources of cash. Oil and gas revenues accounted for around 30% of Russia's federal budget in 2024, Alexander Novak, Russia's Deputy Prime Minister, wrote in Energy Policy last week.

And Western sanctions already appear to be having an effect.

The Kyiv School of Economics said Russian oil export revenues dropped by $1.1 billion to $14.6 billion in November amid US, UK, and EU countermeasures.

"The unified 'triple pressure' strategy raises the risks and costs of violations, prevents sanctions evasion, and reinforces accountability for shipowners and third countries," it said.

Reuters reported last week that sanctions have also triggered a surge in shipping costs, prompting China and India — two of the largest importers of Russian crude — to suspend March purchases of Russian oil.

While those countries "continue to import substantial amounts of Russian oil and raise revenue for the Kremlin, they are also reacting to the stick of the US secondary sanctions," said Gonzalo Saiz Erausquin, a research fellow at the Royal United Services Institute's Centre for Finance and Security.

Analysts say the West must now expand the list of sanctioned shadow fleet ships to effectively hit Russia's oil revenues, as Moscow will likely be able to mitigate short-term impacts with its schemes to evade such measures.

Erausquin said Western countries should also look to crack down on third-country intermediaries, brokers, and fraudulent registries that allow substantial amounts of Russian crude to be imported.

"We have to make sure that we're making life harder for Russia's shadow fleet," Erausquin said.